Thursday, November 28, 2013

Pictorial Discography of Blues & Rhythm Classics

One of the most popular posts on this blog has been the discography of Blues & Rhythm Series of the defunct French label Classics (aka Chronological Classics). This is a follow-up to that post, while the information about the label and its discography still can be accessed here.

Going through these names, images and dates is like discovering a new continent in music. Although the focus of this blog has been mostly jazz, this collection is absolutely essential in understanding many developments in jazz since the 1950s. In addition to that, some of these artists later ventured into more straight jazz framework and produced a good body of work (Bill Doggett, Rusty Bryant, Tiny Grimes, etc.)

A detailed discography of these sessions would unveil even more prominent jazz names as the sidemen. My own introduction to the series was with Big Maybelle which completely blew me away. Still hardly a surprise as I learned that Hot Lips Page was among the musicians! Or for instance, if you've followed this blog, last month I mentioned another memorable collection from this label (by Joe Morris) on which one can listen to early Johnny Griffin, Elmo Hope, Percy Heath and Philly Joe Jones in one session.

In brief, there are more great names hidden beneath the smiling and neatly dressed folks on the cover.

3 comments:

This is an incredible resource. I am now searching for all of the discography you have published here -- especially personnel, exact date and place of recording. The CDs are still on offer. Who is now making them? Best, Sam